USAToday profiles Regie Hamm, the winner of the second American Idol Songwriter competition. Last year, our boards were pretty heated up, with folks so excited about the opportunity to get their songs discovered. Unfortunately, nothing in the rules specifically stated that an amateur songwriter would win the contest — just that they couldn’t submit a [...]
What does the American Idol Songwriter contest winner tell us about professional songwriting?
May 22, 2008 By 2 Comments
Gatekeepers Keeping Your Band Off the Stage?
May 21, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Bob asks this morning whether there’s a new “indie pecking order” that makes it difficult for bands to get booked at “indie-friendly” venues. Absolutely, there is. The house concert circuit among folk performers is probably the best example of this. As I wrote in Host Your Own Concerts, pretty much anybody has the ability to [...]
Getting Hyperconnected Audiences to Shows
May 18, 2008 By 2 Comments
Is your audience hyperconnected? Are you? One of my lightbulb moments happened a few years ago when I was still booking gigs for bands. A club owner I had a great relationship with wanted to know more about one of my new clients. MySpace was just emerging, and hadn’t really impressed a whole lot of [...]
Do Stage Parents Make Good Music Managers?
May 18, 2008 By 1 Comment
Alison Wenham cordially invites you to a flame war.
May 13, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Writing for The Independent, Ms. Wenham finds it ludicrous that anyone would be insulted by the British music industry’s proposal to require a surcharge every time a listener transfers a music file from device to device. Furthermore, anyone blogging about the music industry in this business climate can hope to achieve little more than “repetitive strain [...]
Proposed Chicago Law Would Make It Harder to Host Your Own Concerts
May 10, 2008 By 1 Comment
It always strikes me as odd how Chicago doesn’t always embrace its heritage as one of this nation’s most important cultural cities. A city-backed study revealed that Chicago is a “music city in hiding,” with lots of vibrant clubs and venues hidden from view. Sure, it’s fun to visit a club that doesn’t advertise or [...]
Music Business Education Reaching High Schools
May 8, 2008 By Leave a Comment
After hearing so much great response from our profile of Drexel’s campus-based music business program, I’m noticing more stories about schools that model their student-run record labels and booking agencies along the same principles. This week, the Los Angeles Times profiles a school that’s offering the same kind of real world experience, only at a [...]
Why Nobody Is Making a Living Off 1,000 True Fans
April 28, 2008 By 2 Comments
I would love to be a fly on the wall when Scott wakes up and sees that Kevin Kelly has linked to him. OMFGLMAOBBQ!!1!!11eleventy. Seriously, though, it does seem that the research Kevin’s doing for his new book is touching on an area that readers of this site have been struggling with for a while. [...]
